Tribute: Garry Shandling

We mourn the loss of actor/writer/comedian Garry Shandling, who died today at age 66. He created two of the most innovative and influential television shows of all time, both smart self-aware, : Showtime’s It’s Garry Shandling’s Show (1986–1990) and HBO’s The Larry Sanders Show (1992–1998). Both had a meta overlay with him mocking himself and us and show business all at the same time. And both used show business as a metaphor to illuminate all of our illusions, fears, and our most superficial dreams of validation and success.

Matt Zoller Seitz wrote insightfully about him for New York Magazine’s Vulture blog:

His comic persona, honed over 30 years onstage and in TV and film, fused Jack Benny’s unctuous neediness, Charles Grodin’s dour certitude, Albert Brooks’s self-lacerating intellectual discomfort, and Warren Beatty’s dashing Hollywood satyr act, and added shadings from Shandling’s own personality, plus a great playwright’s keen understanding of the lies that we tell ourselves about ourselves, and how these self-deceptions become plain whenever we try to manipulate others to attain what we think of as happiness.

And Nell Scovell’s tribute in Vanity Fair is very touching. He was one of the first to support her work.

Looking back, I think I connected to Garry’s stand-up because, in a way, he was a female comic. When Joan Rivers was tossing out insults, Garry was talking about his feelings. He fretted about his hair and getting fat. He talked about his shrink and his feeble love life. So much of Garry’s comedy came from being vulnerable and insecure and uncomfortable.

May his memory be a blessing.